I was home with the flu also, and listening to the radiowhen they announced the "major malfunction" then broke in and said "it exploded." I sat stunned, then I called my father at work and broke up an important meeting. We had been at the Kennedy Space Center the previous month to see the Columbia launch; I had wanted nothing more than to become an astronaut.
I can't think about this even now without getting my eyes full of tears.

This was originally written in May of last year, just after I watched the space shuttle Atlantis blast off into orbit. On the anniversary of the Challenger disaster, I thought it was worth reprinting: On January 28, 1986, I was home from school with the flu. I remember that, no matter what I di...